DirectX

This is a discussion on DirectX within the C++ Programming forums, part of the General Programming Boards category; Hi everyone!
All I want to do is work through a DirectX tutorial, any tutorial, but I canít believe how ...

The files like d3d9.dll show up and they are in: c:\Windows\system32
The ones like Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D.dll are in: C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\DirectX for Managed Code\1.0.2902.0

Iíve no idea what the difference between these two distinct groups is.

Anyway, trying to reference the Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3D dllís manually in VB Express made my PC hang with an unending delay notification and I got no further, which is why I have started to learn c++.

Then I tried the DirectX SDK samples, which are in c++.

When I copy Tutorial01 and compile it in c++ 2010 Express I get d3d11.dll not found.

There is a D3D11Ref.dll in system32 lib and in C:\Program Files\Microsoft DirectX SDK (June 2010)\Developer Runtime\x86

Somebody else on this forum posted about this four months ago, which is how I found you and why I posted in this section. He eventually got himself sorted but the instructions given were above my head.

Iíve spent days trying to get into DirectX and havenít got anywhere so would be grateful for a shove in the right direction.

I'm confused, are you trying to do this with VB or C++? DirectX is COM-based and thus its native language is C++. This doesn't mean you have to use C++ to use DirectX though. Managed DirectX is deprecated and only supports interfaces up to DX9. You can still use it, but I wouldn't invest too much effort in it.

Microsoft's XNA has replaced Managed DirectX, kinda... it seems to be targeted toward game developers more than general-purpose users. SlimDX is a project that is creating a .NET wrapper for DirectX which is up-to-date.

So, are you trying to work with C++ or VB.NET? Honestly though I'm kinda tempted to say forget about VB.NET and learn C# (or C++ but native DirectX programming isn't noob-friendly)

The only things that won't work in the latest SDK are DirectMusic and possibly DirectInput. DirectMusic has been removed and deprecated and DirectInput was supposed to be replaced with XInput. Again, not sure on the exact status of the latter.

No worries b/c all DirectInput did was listen to the WM_DATA message in a WndProc inside of a separate thread. It had a bit of overhead and you can pretty much do the same without all of that.